Nobiling has busy summer coaching elite basketball team
By CON MARSHALL Thursday, July 24, 2008
Chadron High School Boys’ Basketball Coach Craig Nobiling is having a busy, but enjoyable, summer.
He’s the head coach of the Nebraska Bison Gold, an elite basketball team made up of boys who are 15 and under that has played in three major tournaments and will enter another one at the end of this month.
Although Nobiling has coached several young all-star teams from northwest Nebraska that have played in state competition, this is the first time he has coached the players chosen to represent Nebraska in national competition.
The team is sponsored largely by the Nebraska Basketball Development Association from proceeds it receives at camps it sponsors. Runza is one of several corporate sponsors who help pay for the travel, motels and meals.
Two Chadron athletes, Zach Bargen and Elliott Eliason, played on the Bison Gold last year and are members of the Bison White, the state’s 16 and under team, this year. The Gold and the White have played in the same tournaments this summer, giving Nobiling a chance to watch the two Cardinals in action in a majority of their games.
Nobiling’s assistant with the Bison Gold is Mike Baker, a native of Harrison who took over as the head basketball coach at Alliance High last year.
“It’s been a real pleasure to work with Mike,” Nobiling said. “We travel together to Lincoln and Omaha for the practices. I think we’ve learned some things and we’ve certainly gotten to see a lot of great young basketball players. We have the same philosophy about most things and get along well. We haven’t tried to remake the players or change their attitudes like we might do if they were on our teams all the time. We’ve mostly tried to get them to play together and enjoy the game.”
While the coaches are from western Nebraska, nearly all the players who were selected for the team are from the eastern end of the state. Connor Larson of McCook is the only one of the 11 who is from the western two-thirds of the state.
All of them will be high school sophomores this year. Nobiling and Baker did not have much input in chosing the players, but Nobiling said the team has lots of talent and has fared better in the three tournaments it has entered than he anticipated.
Nobiling said at least seven of the 11 have the ability to be all-staters if they stay on track. He said the most gifted are probably Derrius Vick of Lincoln Southeast and Dylan Heath of Lincoln Southwest. They are the team’s top scorers, but Nobiling said nearly all the players have scored in a majority of the games.
After six practices, the Gold opened its schedule by going 4-1 in the River City Classic on Omaha on June 20 and 21. The team’s next practices were July 3-4 before it went 4-1 on July 6-8 at a tournament involving 44 teams in Indianapolis.
In the latter tournament, the Nebraskans defeated teams from Minnesota, Illinois and two from Indiana before losing 68-64 to C-Biz from Cincinnati.
From Indianapolis, the Gold went to the 25th annual Eddie Ford Kentucky Hoop Fest in Louisville on July 10-12. The Gold went 2-2 there, defeating another team from Indiana and one from Ohio before losing by about 15 points to a team from Toronto and by one point to a team from Raleigh, N.C.
“The team from Toronto was outstanding. Most of their players were about 6-3 or 6-4 and were really athletic,” Nobiling said. “For a while, I thought we were playing Metro State. They had long arms and were all over us defensively. Then we lost to Raleigh 53-52 on a putback by a 6-8, 320-pound player with four seconds left.”
Nobiling added that the hoop fest in Louisville was especially remarkable. It was located at the Expo Center, where eight courts were set up. Many major college coaches including Doc Sadler of Nebraska, Thad Matta of Ohio State, Tom Izzo of Michigan State, Johnny Dawkins of Sanford and Greg McDermott of Iowa State were in attendance, although they are forbidden to say more than “Hi” to either the all-stars or the team coaches.
Next up will be a 40-team tournament in Kansas City on July 28-31.
Making the coaching experience more interesting to Nobiling is the fact that he’s been able to watch Bargen and Eliason and their Bison White teammates at the same tournaments where the Gold have played. The White players will be juniors in 2008-09.
Nobiling said the White won the River City Tourney in Omaha, then went 7-1 in Indianapolis and 6-1 in Louisville. Both of the Cardinals have played well.
Nobiling said Bargen, a 6-5 guard, has shot well from the outside and has handled the ball more than he did with the Cardinals last season. In addition, the coach said Bargen has put the ball on the floor and take it to the basket more often.
Eliason, the Cardinals’ 6-11 pivot, has scored in the teens in most of the games and is averaging about 10 rebounds and four or five blocked shots a game, Nobiling said.
“Both have been impressive,” the coach said. “It’s fun to watch their development.”
Eliason has already been offered scholarships by Nebraska, Colorado State and South Dakota State and has drawn special attention from numerous other Division I schools, Nobiling said. He added that he anticipates it will be another year before Eliason makes a decision on where he will attend college.
As for his own future, Nobiling, who has coached the Cardinals six years and taken them to the state tournament the past two years, said he will “Never say never,” but doubts that he will coach one of the elite teams again anytime soon.
“It’s been a great experience and it’s fun to coach kids with special athletic talent. But it’s a huge commitment that has taken me away from my family a lot this summer. It’s also cost Mike and I quite a bit of money. Even though our motels and meals are paid for, we’ve paid for most of our own gas.”
Nobiling added that while there have been no real problems with the Gold team, coaching the all-stars has helped him appreciate even more than he did before the work ethic and the “team-first” attitude that are demonstrated by the Chadron players he coaches year in and year out.
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This is a team photo of the Bison Gold that Chadron High Coach Craig Nobiling is coaching this summer. In front, from left, are Travis Schuler, Grand Island; Assistant Coach Mike Baker of Alliance, Nobiling, team representative Roger Zajicek of Lincoln and Eric Donald, Omaha Creighton Prep. In the back are Connor Larson, McCook; Conner Schultz, Pierce; Ethan Brozek, Norfolk Catholic; Zach Sterup, Hastings St. Cecelia; Dylan Heath, Lincoln Southwest; Mickey Russell, Council Bluffs St. Albert’s; and Derek Schouse, Lincoln Southeast. Not pictured are Derrius Vick and Cody Charlton, both of Lincoln Southeast.
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